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I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

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Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#11

Post by jerf »

shard wrote: post #7

Not sure if the OP is the author, or if the author will read this, but I ate the shed, and at first found it delightful, but then got an annoying bit stuck in my teeth. The Guide first says "The results of the spell are supposed to be independent." And I took that at face value, since I figured this is an educational page rather than a page of brain teasers and trick questions. But then when it asks "in my last 100 c…

I think that's a really hard problem to phrase correctly no matter what you do, because no matter what you do, you're swimming upstream against almost the entire mathematical education that person has had up to that point. Up to that point the answer to "Susie has 37.8 cookies and wants to split them evenly weighted by the body mass of the 17 people in her class, how many cookies does each person get?" has never been "Why the hell does she want to do that?" But that's the kind of answer you're fishing for at that point.

No criticism intended of the question itself. Every stats course should have it in there somewhere, it's a very important one. But I'v personally tried my hand at how to phrase it exactly right a couple of times and it's really, really hard.

(Since this is an invitation for 50 people to post their attempts, I would also point out it's easy to phrase it in a way that works for you, who wrote the question. You might find if you take it out for testing that it doesn't work as well as you thought, though. But by all means, smash that reply button. I can't stop you. :) )

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#14

Post by dang »

Submitted title was "Building Sheds: 5 years of polishing, and only 3 points on HN". Please don't do that—it's against the site guidelines:

"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#15

Post by nonbirithm »

You can still believe that a project which becomes a shed is desired by an audience, however niche, and not care as much about getting popularity, which gives you an excuse to keep working. You can let a project that you still get enjoyment out of consume the rest of your life. It's scary that the thing you willingly do to get away from obligation and 9 to 5 work can be at the same time the most fulfilling and most debilitating thing you do.

It's even harder to detach when your shed is your idea of "making something out of your life", when you imagine the alternative being years of wasted potential suppressing your life's true desires. Don't people always say to never put off what you want to do right now until it's too late? But for someone unable to detach, I'm still not sure if remaining dispassionate is worse than the chronic issues that arise from lack of sleep and similar from never giving up and earning the label of "tenacious".

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#17

Post by benfarahmand »

I may or may not be building a shed in my spare time for the past 5 years, but I'm positive I'm not making a cake. With prototyping and user feedback it feels like I'm not building a shed, but the effort many times feels like I'm building a shed. That said, the shed definition could be clearer because there are parts of my passion project that makes it feel like I'm building a shed (i.e. marketing).

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#18

Post by gwbas1c »

sigmonsays wrote: post #13

i just built a shed. I wanna know in depth how they built it to take 9 years. Nobody? =P

Just click the link. I copied here for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/czg04y/shed_is_finally...

Summary: The guy bought a house and decided he wanted to build a shed. He bought the plans, poured the slab, and then life happened.

Basically, every time he had time / money to work on his shed, some kind of obligation came up or some kind of emergency ate away at his shed funds.

IMO, I think it's just a case of the shed not being that important, but the joke being "worth it." If it really was important he'd have figured out how to finish it more quickly. (It's not that expensive to have someone deliver a small shed to a home.)

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#19

Post by elmers-glue »

I’ve made two side projects so far. The first was a visual JVM profiler that was very complex and educational/intellectually satisfying to build but when I finished it I had little interest or know-how or capital to invest in growing + marketing it.

The second one was as simplest as I could possibly make it. I had basically 2 hours per weekend in 2021 (kids & all) and I rigorously stuck within my estimated scope. I was really focused on making cake. I use the app all the time; it’s at least cake to me. In 2022 I’ll have to figure out if other people think it’s cake, too. But at least no will able to say I over-scoped it, or over-estimated it.

Re: I was stuck on a side project for 5 years – how I finished it (2020)

#20

Post by gwbas1c »

The shed is a poor analogy. (Here's the link to the story about the shed that took 9 years to build: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/czg04y/shed_is_finally...)

Basically, the guy wasn't a perfectionist. He didn't build and tear down 5 different sheds. It just wasn't a priority. It was really important to him that he DIY his shed, but "life" happened. Every time he set aside a weekend or some funds for the shed, something came up.

If he really needed a shed, he could have just ordered one from Home Depot. They aren't that expensive and are dropped off, fully assembled.

> the shed consumed their free cycles and mind space for 9 years.

No, it was more like a running joke. The shed was an unfinished project that was never gotten around to. My dad started finishing his basement before I was born, and only finished it over 20 years later! It was also a running joke in my family.

Ironically, I have a grass-free spot of land in my yard that was supposed to be for a dog run. My dog died a few years after I built my house. Maybe in 9 years I'll put a shed there.

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